Friday, September 29, 2006

I read CSM Pendry’s blog whenever he updates it, and often bookmark it to cite him when he writes something I particularly enjoy. Unfortunately, my time is lacking so when I finally get around to it something new has popped up. Here’s something I bookmarked quite some time ago, yet never got around to posting.

Jimmy Carter, you’re the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You’re the runner-in-chief.

Bill Clinton, you played ring around Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia, and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses embolden the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately they grew bolder, until 9/11.

John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American soldiers in Vietnam. Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You’ve accused our soldiers of terrorizing women in Iraq. You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time; the same words you used to describe Vietnam. You’re a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam is another war that you were for, before you were against it.

John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can’t win militarily in Iraq. You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof.. And said we should redeploy to Okinawa. Okinawa, John? And the Democrats call you their military expert. Are you sure you didn’t suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You’re a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You’re not a Marine, sir. You wouldn’t amount to a pimple on a real Marine’s butt. You’re a phony and a disgrace. Run away John.

Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned South East Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? See dick run.

Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Grhaib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqis torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news this week Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrate real torture for you again. If you truly supported our troops, you’d show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You’re a bloated fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer et al ad nauseam. Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied. That the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers. That we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers the same ones that tortured and mutilated American soldiers – cause to think that we will run away again and all they have to do is hang on a little longer.

American news media, the New York Times particularly. Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can’t strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country.

Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer. You are America’s axis of idiots. Your collective stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don’t ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam. If you want our soldiers home, as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I’m questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I’m also questioning why you’re stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don’t deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country.. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.

No, Commander-in-Chief, you don’t get off the hook either. Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It’s your obligation to support them by confronting the axis of idiots.. America must hear it from you that these people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little anger please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets. Our soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot. They need you to do it now!

J.D. Pendry is a retired Army Command Sergeant Major who writes for Random House

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Georgia is the heart of America’s redneck territory, so it’s no surprise that the Redneck Games are held here in East Dublin. This is stereotypical beer, barbeque and arm fart country, a place where bent coat-hangers with aluminum foil serve as antennas and good ol’ country boys keep both dogs and wallets on chains. Originally dubbed the Bubba-Olympics in 1995, the event is an outrageous, politically incorrect spoof the real 1996 Olympics held in Atlanta.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Houston – Andrea Yates, a Houston mother who systematically drowned her five children in the family bathtub, was found not guilty of murder Wednesday by reason of insanity.

The 42-year-old will be committed to a state mental hospital, with periodic hearings before a judge to determine whether she should be released.

If convicted of murder, she would have faced life in prison.

I know it’s old news but it’s just so damn shocking. This heartless whore methodically drowns her five children and they decide it’s not murder? No one doubts that she killed them, but they play a tapdance with words and now she’s not a murderer – she’s just “insane”.

And that changes what? Five children, her children, are still dead. Five children will never grow up to play kickball, go to the prom – have a family of their own. Why is insanity a copout?

This woman should be swinging from a yardarm. Instead, she could be your neighbor.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Sunday, September 17, 2006

I’m getting pretty sick of it, though. I only have a handful muslim friends and acquainences. Of those, there are only one or two that I’d consider “friends”. One of them is from Iraq, the other from Iran. Others, that I’m not so close with, are from various countries or born here in the US. When we get together, we often talk religion or politics. Why wouldn’t we? A good number of my friends are pretty involved with politics. That only makes sense, since I am as well.

Last week, we were discussing the Pope’s speech that has the muslim community in an uproar. Most muslims were. An American born muslim didn’t really give a shit. Her attitude was that religious leaders say stupid things every day and if we got upset over all of the them or acted upon their furor, we’d spend most of our lives in jail or pissed off. A very good point. Mosques are much like christian churches in their diversity. You can go to one church and hear hell-fire and damnation, yet travel a mile down the road and hear love and tolerance. Neither one is particularly a “bad” thing, it just is or isn’t something you agree with. You settle in a church that most closely aligns with your personal interpretation of the Bible, God, and life. The same applies to mosques.

My Iranian friend had a different view, though. He was pretty pissed off. He was upset that the Pope would further the hatred of Islam, and portray them as a religion of violence. He feared this would start a Christian/Muslim war in certain parts of the country. I asked him what he thought about the churches that were shot up and fire-bombed following the Pope’s speech. He didn’t have much to say. First, he blamed it on the “emotional youth”. Then he said it was too bad the different religions couldn’t be more tolerant. At one point, he stated that although they acted badly, you couldn’t blame them for being pissed off.

In fact, he did everything except condemn the attacks. I didn’t really sit down and think about our conversation until later. Is this representative of the average muslim? Every time you see a cartoon depicting Allah or hear a statement that offends the muslims, they don’t seem to have trouble coming together with a unified front to denounce it, call for an apology, threaten violence, and/or kill people and commit violent acts. However, you rarely see ANY front condemning the acts committed by “emotional youth” or bringing those people to justice. Muslim leaders are still demanding a personal apology from the Pope, but I’ve yet to see one demanding their community rebuild the churches, most of which weren’t even catholic.

Am I missing the boat here? If I’m wrong, I’d love to be set straight. It certainly seems that Islam is a religion of violence, either through direct action or acceptance.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

I took a few days off from work to complete some projects at the Gordon Estate. The one I looked forward to most was building a sandpit for my sons. Not just an ordinary sandpit like you see at Walmart in the plastic turtle, but a 200 square foot enclosure flanked by cedar and rigged for some exteme Tonka action.

I spent an entire day reinventing the wheel as I engineered and built my kid’s sandpit. Throughout the trials and tribulations of building the eighth wonder of the world, what I looked forward to the most was my trip to Lowes to load my old pick-up with the play sand. The finishing touch.

This morning, coffee in hand, I set off to accomplish the feat. A ton and a half of play sand later, I chugged down the road riding the frame like that old jollopi on the film Grapes of Wrath. Once home, I used my wheelbarrow to shuttle the hundred pound bags to the sandpit. I can’t tell you how excited I was to witness the dream become reality.

I wasn’t even finished dumping all the bags in before my kids were ankle deep with their Tonkas having a blast. As I dumped the second to last bag in the pit, my wife picked up the empty liner and paused. Something on the bag had caught her eye.

KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN.

She cautiosly brought this too my attention. I read the fine print. Apparently this “play sand” had some fucking fine dust of nitrate something the fuck ever in it that could lead to lung and nerve damage to people, particuarly children, if not handled properly or if it comes in contact with the skin.

Those fucking idiots at Lowes gave me the wrong order of sand. What pisses me off the most was that I never noticed. I always double check other people’s work. Except today, of course.

The realization that I had just purchased, loaded, hauled, then unloaded a ton and a half of sand for nothing struck me like thunder. It wasn’t the cost or effort that got to me the most, it was knowing that not only did I have to do it all again – but now I had to dig up and dispose of the original ton and a half of sand. God Dammit!

Dumbfounded, all I could think of to say was – “What a kick to the nuts……”

The family’s reaction was priceless. My oldest boy gleefully leapt around chanting “Daddy got kicked in the nuts” – over and over and the youngest just giggled. My wife squirmed in sympathy while my dad just looked at me and laughed.

I didn’t find it funny whatsoever then, but I do now. I just got up, went to the garage and had a can of Schmidt. I’ll deal with it tommorow.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Even though I’m not a wine guy, I still give it a shot now and then. The other day I visited a local vineyard that had not only the standard grape choices – but apple, pear, as well as several berry wines. Surprisingly, of all the samples, blackberry wine was my drink of choice. I have a glass beside me now and for the first time in my life, I’m genuinely enjoying a glass and not just being polite.

That lead me to thinking about the homemade wine I always hear people speak of. My kids and I filled the freezer this summer with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries we all picked either in the wild or at farms and I wouldn’t mind giving it a go.